Chapter 2 - The Grandfather Everyone Stopped Believing
Caleb was admitted to Shady Grove Medical Center for observation.
The emergency physician told Sarah they had stabilized him quickly. He was breathing on his own, but the substance in his system could cause prolonged drowsiness and required monitoring.
Sarah sat beside his bed holding his small hand.
Lily sat across the room with a hospital social worker.
Amber had been taken to the police station for questioning, not arrested. Officer Holloway explained that investigators first needed to determine what Caleb ingested, whether Amber administered it, and how she obtained Walter’s prescription.
Sarah barely heard him.
“Why does she have Walter’s medication?”
“That’s something we’ll be asking.”
Walter Bennett was seventy-four and lived alone in the same Rockville house where he and his late wife had raised three children: Sarah’s husband, Daniel; Daniel’s younger sister Amber; and their brother Paul, who lived in Colorado.
Over the previous year Walter had become forgetful.
At least that was what Amber kept saying.
She had begun driving him to appointments, paying his bills, and answering his phone.
At Thanksgiving, Walter forgot Lily’s name.
At Christmas, he fell asleep halfway through dinner.
In February, he signed papers allowing Amber to help manage his checking account.
Sarah had noticed something strange.
Walter was often sharper when Amber wasn’t around.
One morning at Caleb’s basketball game, he spent twenty minutes explaining the Washington Nationals’ terrible bullpen strategy with perfect clarity. Three hours later, after Amber brought him home from lunch, he could barely remember where he had parked.
Everyone blamed age.
Amber blamed dementia.
Sarah had believed her.
Until now.
The hospital social worker approached.
“Lily told us something you need to hear.”
Sarah looked across the room.
Lily’s cheeks were red from crying.
“She says Caleb got upset today because he recognized the bottle.”
Sarah stood.
“Recognized it from where?”
Lily whispered, “Grandpa’s kitchen.”
Sarah looked toward Caleb.
Two weeks earlier, he had come home from Walter’s house saying Aunt Amber was “doing something weird with Grandpa’s orange juice.”
Sarah had laughed because Caleb described nearly every adult activity as weird.
Now she remembered his next sentence.
Grandpa gets sleepy whenever Aunt Amber wants him to sign papers.
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Sarah had told him not to accuse people of things he didn’t understand.
Sitting beside Caleb’s hospital bed, she finally understood that he might have understood far more than she did.
